“I’m a singer you never wanna see shirtless,” raps Ed Sheeran during Take It Back, stretching English self-deprecation to the limits of believability. He may cling to the idea that he’s the cuddly ginger kid nobody fancies, but he has only to look at the screen behind him, on to which is projected his hugely magnified face and checked red shirt, to be assured that he’s part of 2014’s pop elite. Twitter has been clogged all day with young fans “actually crying” – as one puts it – because they didn’t win tickets to this show; those who did are Instagramming their good luck from the minute Sheeran kicks off with I’m a Mess, from current album X.
The first time Sheeran played the iTunes festival – “supporting Bruno Mars in 2011”, he remembers with the cheeriness of someone who’s since sold 6m albums – he’d released one quiveringly sincere single, The A Team. Three years later, he occupies a unique place in UK pop: adored by young girls for being the empathetic nice guy who’s on the same page they are, but also admired by urban artists for his Timberlake-esque ability to get behind a beat and produce credible R&B, such as this year’s No 1 single Sing. Tonight, the song that best sums things up is Take It Back, a sweet precis of his career that veers from half-apology (“I’m not a rapper, I’m a singer with a flow,” he raps politely, Suffolk to the core) to braggadocio (“Madison Square Garden is where I might be”).
It’s surprising that he hasn’t got a backing band to do the heavy lifting – he might have appreciated it on a night like this, when he’s only returned from Australia 24 hours before. But he goes it alone, accompanied by an acoustic guitar and loop pedal. Layering and looping guitar lines, and hammering the guitar to add a beat, he creates a whole band’s worth of noise, and when he abandons the effects pedal during a couple of ballads, the show loses its frenetic fizz. Sheeran without fizz, it turns out, is like Jack without Meg: palatable, but only half as engaging.
He offers a glimpse of his acoustic-folk roots when he and support act Foy Vance play Vance’s sober Guiding Light, but it’s easy to see why he veered away from a sedate troubadour’s life. Sheeran thrives best as a livewire choirmaster, commanding his congregation to sing with him. “We’re going to build to an orgasmic climax of music,” he promises before Give Me Love, and he achieves it – ringingly, and with shirt still on.
• At Odyssey Arena, Belfast, 8 and 9 October. Box office: 028-9073 9074. Then touring.
